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Manchester City Football Club Appoints iCrossing for New Digital Account

London
- Jul 17, 2009
iCrossing to build digital strategy to engage with Premiership football club fans

“The club is expanding its digital activity aggressively and to succeed we must better understand our existing and potential supporters. The aspiration and vision is to build the successful and sustainable football club for the future. With expert help from iCrossing, we can put digital at the heart of the mission.”

Digital marketing agency iCrossing today announces it has been appointed by the leading English football club Manchester City FC to run all natural and paid search, social media and buzz monitoring activity for the club. The new activity will be the first time the club has actively employed digital marketing techniques to engage more effectively with fans via its online content.

iCrossing will initially carry out extensive search and social media focussed research into the language and conversation used online around the club, its assets, CSR/community initiatives and partners. From this, iCrossing will ascertain the current level of reputation and visibility online, and highlight the opportunities that Manchester City FC can pursue in terms of both engagement and commercial value. How different networks, from hardcore football forums to video game sites, new overseas fans to career development spaces, converse around the universal topic of football and more specifically Manchester City FC, will provide insights which can be seized upon and converted into value.

To activate these search/social focused activities successfully, iCrossing will create a digital framework where an ongoing measurement and evaluation focus, centred around iCrossing’s brand and buzz monitoring services, will allow for live evaluation and agile decision making.

Julian Ireland, Planning Director, iCrossing commented, “We are delighted to be working with probably the most exciting football club right now. To build a football club into a more progressive ‘entertainment brand’ needs a strategy that embraces, but goes beyond, the new world-class website. Digital, specifically search and social, is a relatively new area for football clubs. Social media means a new challenge faces the likes of Manchester City FC, where content curation, sharing data and optimisation in every respect are critical to providing value to online communities.”

David Pullan, Brand & Marketing Officer, MCFC says “The club is expanding its digital activity aggressively and to succeed we must better understand our existing and potential supporters. The aspiration and vision is to build the successful and sustainable football club for the future. With expert help from iCrossing, we can put digital at the heart of the mission.”

About iCrossing

iCrossing, formerly known as Spannerworks in the UK, is a global digital marketing agency that combines talent and technology to help world-class brands find and connect with their customers. The company blends best-in-class marketing services - including paid search and natural search marketing, social media, content and media, display advertising, user experience, web development and analytics and insight to create integrated digital marketing programs that engage consumers and drive ROI.

iCrossing clients include world-class brands such as The Coca Cola company, HBOS, Toyota and Virgin. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the company has 550 employees in 12 offices in the US and Europe, including 97 employees in the UK.

About Manchester City FCInformally known as “The Blues” or “The Citizens”, Manchester City FC is an English Premier League side, founded in 1880 as St Mark’s West Gorton. It counts the European Cup Winners’ Cup, 2 League Championship titles, and four FA Cups amongst its honours.

Managed by Mark Hughes, former manager of Blackburn Rovers and the Welsh national team, the team plays at the City of Manchester Stadium, a spectacular 47,000 seater stadium which the Blues made their home following on from the successful Commonwealth Games in 2003.